Hong Kong shares rose sharply in early morning trade on Thursday, with the benchmark Hang Seng up more than 2% as investors and traders cheered US consumer confidence data, which rose to an eight-month high in December after a fall in inflation and continued strength in the labor market rose . Also the twelve-month inflation expectations fell to their lowest level since Sept. 2021 at 6.7%.

shares of Xpeng rose over 11% while no gained over 6% in the opening trade. Alibaba Shares rose more than 3.5% JD.com The stock gained over 4.5%.

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Macro News: Berlin has sent its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines to China, initially to be given to German expatriates, Reuters reported, citing a German government spokesman.

Chinese workers with mild COVID-19 have been asked to return to work in some cities as officials try to limit the economic impact of a spike in cases. reported Bloomberg.

Company News: Tesla Inc TSLA China boss Tom Zhu and a team was brought in to troubleshoot production issues in the United States, Reuters reported.

The waiting time for the ET5the cheapest model from Nio, was further shortened in China, reported CnEVPost.

Top winners and losers: Country Garden Services Holdings Company Limited and JD.com, Inc. were the top gainers among Hang Seng constituents, each up over 4%. WuXi Biologics (Cayman) Inc. and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Limited are the biggest losers at 0.88% and 0.73% respectively.

Global News: US futures were trading in the green in Asia on Thursday morning. Dow Jones futures gained 0.17% while Nasdaq futures gained 0.25%. Futures on the S&P 500…